I have the last reel from a film called "Alice Through The Looking Glass" copyrighted by Pathe in 1927. However, it is NOT listed in the Library of Congress' catalog of Motion picture copyrights, 1912-1939.

This is reel 5, multi-tinted safety film stock, runs 11 minutes and complete. I always thought it was this film http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018640/ but just found it apparently isn't.

This is NOT the 1915 version. My reel ends with a dinner party attended by all the characters and an intertitle saying something like "Life is truly but a dream" or similar.

But here is a problem. All the character's costumes seem, to me at least, the same used in the 1915 version.

He may be standing on the same rock but the rock doesn't seem to be standing in the same place.

My guess is the costumes and props came from a stage production, the way opera sets and costumes can get reused over many years by different companies, and that's why the same pieces were available to be rented in both the teens and the twenties.

“Sentimentality is when it doesn't come off—when it does, you get a true expression of life's sorrows.” —Alain-Fournier

Mike Gebert wrote:He may be standing on the same rock but the rock doesn't seem to be standing in the same place.

The black and white Mock Turtle photo is touched up to remove the background.

My guess is the costumes and props came from a stage production, the way opera sets and costumes can get reused over many years by different companies, and that's why the same pieces were available to be rented in both the teens and the twenties.

I think the answer may actually be in the link that you had in your first post - the one with the 1915 pictures.

The page states that during the production of the film, scenes from the Looking Glass were filmed but not used in the original prints. It has a still from one of those scenes (on the bottom right) which looks like a few of your photos.

The reel you have seems to depict the banquet scene from Looking Glass. If that is the case, you have some extremely rare and previously lost footage there.

KenGriffin wrote:I think the answer may actually be in the link that you had in your first post - the one with the 1915 pictures.

The page states that during the production of the film, scenes from the Looking Glass were filmed but not used in the original prints. It has a still from one of those scenes (on the bottom right) which looks like a few of your photos.

The reel you have seems to depict the banquet scene from Looking Glass. If that is the case, you have some extremely rare and previously lost footage there.

Cool. There is another reel 5 out there. It was sold on eBay weeks after I got mine.

I loaned this reel to a certain video company last year for telecine along with another rare fantasy film. Should be out on video in the near future, I hope.

Will email the archives to see if they have other reels from this feature.

It seems that Alice Through The Looking Glass may have been distributed after all. I was just looking through an online copy of the Educational Film Magazine from January 1920 and a list of approved films from the National Motion Picture League contains:

This is confusing - I thought Alice in Wonderland was more than three reels in length? If the reel lengths are accurate, it suggestions that you have a reel from an omnibus version combining both films.